It is often desirable to communicate or “talk” with others in a quiet or discrete manner. There are many situations in which people may desire to communicate with one another, but actual verbal talking is inappropriate. For reasons of etiquette, security, negotiation strategy or language, it may be required to communicate in a discrete manner.
For example, it is generally not acceptable in an office environment to yell a message to someone 30 feet distant. Such a communication would disrupt everyone in the area. Further, a loud voice is generally disturbing.
One or more parties to a desired communication may already be in a verbal conversation with others, for example on the phone or in a meeting. It is frequently desirable to have a “side conversation” among some, but not all, participants in a meeting. Passing notes is a well known response to that scenario. Another well known technique is to whisper.
Many people, however, find such prior art techniques lacking. Passing notes or whispering are generally considered rude. Further, they may serve to attract unwanted attention to a private conversation. A traditional method may also lack a desired level of privacy or security.
A high tech version of talking among a subset of meeting participants has emerged in recent years. Meeting participants may use two-way pagers or the SMS features of mobile phones to message one another. With the advent of wireless internet connectivity, it is even possible to send email among participants in a meeting.
These high tech methods are also found to be insufficient. They generally rely on wide area infrastructure, which is frequently public. Messages are thus dispersed over geographically dispersed areas, allowing numerous points for interception. Public infrastructures additionally incur costs, often on a per-message or per size of message basis.
What is needed, therefore, is a means for silent communication that is discrete, secure, and has a limited geographic footprint.
Unfortunately, methods for discrete communication with these benefits have not been available in the prior art.